So instead of denying that Fergus and I had ever met, I was forced to behave as if my best friends were my sworn enemies – or at least, that they were people I didn’t particularly want to mix with. I had to act as if I’d come to the park alone.
Fergus was such a quick study, he’d grasped this at once. My job was to follow his lead.
‘Who’s this, then? Your big brother?’ Fergus scornfully inquired, jerking his chin at Reuben. I have to admit, it was a master stroke. In just six short words, Fergus not only demonstrated complete ignorance of my family life; he also managed to suggest, very subtly, that I was the sort of loser who couldn’t go anywhere without a bodyguard.
‘No,’ was my sullen response. ‘He’s just a friend.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Fergus drawled. ‘Well, it’s good when you’ve got at least one friend, eh?’ By this he meant to convey his firm belief that I couldn’t possibly have much of a social life. ‘I guess you wanna buy something at the kiosk?’ he continued. ‘Like maybe a lollipop? Lollipops are great when you’re feeling scared.’
I didn’t even have to fake my wince. As for Reuben, he narrowed his eyes. But he didn’t say anything.
‘Is that what you do when you’re scared? Suck on a lollipop?’ was the only comeback I could think of. It was pretty lame. I used it as my exit line, though, because I was desperate to leave before someone screwed up. Amin, for instance, was sweating bullets. I’ve never seen anyone look so guilty. And Fergus isn’t always reliable in these situations. His lies can easily spiral out of control.
That’s why I headed for the lake, hoping that Reuben would come after me. I wasn’t trying to lure him towards the werewolf tracks. I just wanted to draw him away from Fergus.
‘See you at school!’ Fergus cried, as I bolted. Amin was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. I prayed that they would both have the sense to hang back; if they followed me too soon, Reuben would probably spot them. And if he did, I knew, there would be hell to pay.
I figured that things might get pretty hairy, once Reuben became suspicious.
So I loped off, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and Fergus – without, at the same time, giving the impression that I was in a hurry. I didn’t really set a course. I had no destination in mind. I just put one foot in front of the other.
‘Hey! Wait! Hang on!’ It was Reuben, right on my tail. He wasn’t even out of breath. ‘Toby, listen. This is important.’
But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had to keep moving.
‘There’s something I’ve gotta tell you,’ he growled into my ear. It was impossible to shake him off. He kept pace with me, so he didn’t have to raise his voice. ‘When I was your age, I was locked in an underground tank. I spent five years in that tank, and I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. Okay?’
That made me stop. I stared at him, speechless, as he scanned our immediate surroundings. We were on the outskirts of the Memorial Gardens, where some kids were playing under the pergola. But they were very young kids, and they were screaming like mandrakes. It was pretty obvious that they weren’t going to be interested in anything that Reuben said.
‘I was raised in the country,’ he went on, ‘and one morning, when I was your age, I woke up in a field. Couldn’t remember how I got there. But I had a brother who liked to party, and I’d been drinking with him the night before, so I figured it had something to do with that. I didn’t connect it with all the dead sheep around town. I thought wild dogs were responsible. Which was what most people thought.’
He paused, as if expecting me to comment. Once again, though, I was lost for words. What do you say in these situations? No wonder you’re so screwed up, if you were locked in a tank for five years? It suddenly occurred to me that Reuben might be genuinely mad – that he might be suffering from some kind of post-traumatic thing.
You can imagine how happy I felt when that thought popped into my head.
‘There were only two people who guessed the truth,’ he said (after realising that I had nothing to contribute), ‘and they weren’t locals. They were two guys who knew what to look for. The McKinnons. They’d watch out for reports of wild dog attacks, and whenever they heard of an attack that happened on the night of a full moon, they’d investigate. They’d come to town asking questions about families with seven sons, and kids with behavioural problems.’
This time, when Reuben stopped, it wasn’t because he was waiting for input. It was because his voice had failed him. He had to clear his throat and lick his lips before proceeding.
‘The McKinnons kidnapped me,’ he finally declared, his tone so harsh that it sounded like a concrete slab being dragged down a gravel road. ‘Then they locked me up. And every full moon they’d let me out to fight another werewolf. In a pit, with people watching. Those bastards would lay bets, like they do at dogfights.’ Something in my blank expression must have warned him that I wasn’t buying this, because he thrust his face into mine, pushing aside his tangled curls to display a scar like a trench above his left ear. ‘How do you think I got all these scars?’ he demanded roughly. ‘These are bite marks. These are claw marks. I killed six people, and they went down fighting. Do you think that’s easy to live with?’
‘No,’ I mumbled, shrinking back. He was really, really freaking me out.
‘In the end I escaped,’ he concluded, ‘and those guys – the kidnappers – they got what they deserved. But you can make big money out of blood sports, so there’ll always be people somewhere in the world going after that money. I know there’s a guy in America who never got caught. Name of Forrest Darwell. He’s probably still staging fights and buying kids from the Philippines. In fact he once came over here to buy me, only it didn’t pan out.’ Reuben’s eyes became blazing green slits. ‘One day,’ he said slowly, spitting out every word, ‘I’m gunna track down that bastard. When I’ve got enough money saved, I’ll head to America and introduce myself. Then I’ll teach him a few lessons about fighting for his life.’
Oh man, I thought, swallowing hard. I don’t know if I can convey to you how goddamn scary Reuben was, at that moment. You got the distinct impression that he could barely keep a lid on the red-hot fury that was seething behind his clenched fists and bared teeth.
All the same, I had to ask the obvious question.
‘Why don’t you just tell the police?’ I said. ‘If you know where this Darwell bloke actually is—’
Reuben cut me off.
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘That’s the whole point. We can’t go around telling everyone, it’s too risky. Once the news gets out, people totally lose it. They treat you like an animal. They lock you in a tank or pull your teeth out.’
‘Pull your teeth out?’
‘It’s what happened to a guy I know. Someone like us. He had a bad time when he was a kid, even before the McKinnons got hold of him. His grandfather said he was a threat to society and pulled some of his teeth out. Kept him chained and muzzled. It was way off in the boondocks, so no one ever noticed – except the McKinnons, of course.’ Distracted by painful memories, Reuben hadn’t been paying much attention to the outside world. But all at once he emerged from this reverie; he grabbed my arm and pulled me close. ‘If you wanna end up living like Danny Ruiz,’ he added, ‘out in the desert with a buncha dogs, then you should keep shooting your mouth off.’
‘Me?’ I was aghast. (How did he know?) ‘I haven’t said a word to anyone!’
He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. His expression was enough.
‘It’s true!’ I protested. But he just shook his head.
‘You’ve cooked up some scheme with those friends of yours,’ he flatly declared. ‘You think I couldn’t work that out? I’m not a complete idiot.’
‘What friends?’ My motto has always been: if you’ve told a lie, then stick with it. Because sometimes, if you stick with it long enough, it might actually start to sound like the truth. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You told
me to come here so your mate with the freckles could have a squiz at the crazy guy,’ said Reuben. ‘You just wanna laugh. You don’t really want me to find you any proof.’
‘I do!’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘I swear! I’m really interested! I am!’
Reuben sighed. He put his hands on his hips, letting his gaze drift towards the pergola as if he couldn’t bear to look at me anymore.
‘You know what? If I could, I’d tell you to stuff it,’ he said at last. ‘But I can’t. I can’t just sit back and let you kill someone.’
He was watching the little kids as they scurried around not far from us; I guess they must have struck him as natural werewolf bait. As for me, I glanced nervously in the other direction, hoping that I wouldn’t catch sight of Fergus.
To my relief, there was no one skulking behind any nearby hedges.
‘So you want proof?’ Reuben suddenly asked. ‘Is that what you really came here for?’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded madly, like one of those bobble-headed toys. Humour him, I thought. Don’t annoy him. ‘Yes. That’s what I came here for.’
‘Okay. Well . . . choose your spot.’ He waved at the scenery. ‘Tell me where you wanna go, and we’ll see if you left any traces there on Monday.’
By this time, let me tell you, I had things all worked out. Reuben was a bad-news guy. I had to get away from him. But I couldn’t just run; he’d come after me for sure. He knew where I lived. He had a weird, compulsive agenda of some kind. What I had to do was scare him away, so he’d never return.
The problem was that I couldn’t exactly threaten him with severe bodily harm. Though taller than Reuben, I didn’t have the muscle. He would have wiped the floor with me. So my best bet was blackmail. If I could record him claiming that the fake paw prints were real, it would give me a bit of leverage. I could say to him, ‘Back off or I’ll use this. I’ll stick it on the Net. I’ll show it to the police.’
It was my only weapon. In the heat of the moment, I could think of no alternative.
‘O-okay,’ I stammered. ‘Let’s try the lake.’
‘The lake?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s where everyone else always goes.’
He studied me for a few seconds, then gave a nod. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re right. I reckon those ducks would have got you interested when you were on the rampage.’ As he spun around, I stealthily fingered my phone, unlocking the keypad without even glancing at it. (I learned to do that at school; you have to count your keystrokes very carefully and cough whenever the phone beeps.) ‘You might even have stopped at the lake for a drink,’ Reuben continued, up ahead. ‘Since it was a hot night on Monday.’
I grunted, then followed him to the lake. While most of the lakeside is lawn right down to the water, in two or three places someone has lined the shore with reeds and bushes and big, jagged rocks. Around the waterfall it’s like that; it’s also like that near the little white bridge. And in both locations, you get a lot of birds as well as a lot of mud.
So I guess it wasn’t surprising that Reuben headed straight for the very grove where Fergus had left his paw prints.
‘We’ll try in here,’ Reuben suggested. He was still on the path, which had begun to wind between two thick walls of foliage. But he soon stopped to look for an opening among the dense, spiky clumps of palm trees and ornamental grass that blocked his route to the lakeside.
‘Can you smell that?’ he asked suddenly.
I stared at him in confusion. ‘What?’
‘Can you smell that?’ he repeated, sniffing the air. ‘I can.’
Cautiously I followed his example. Sniff, sniff. Australian native plants have a distinctive scent, very spicy and antiseptic; it was dominating the Nurragingy smellscape, as usual. I could also smell jasmine, exhaust fumes and hot chips. But there was something else as well – something faint and rank that caught at the back of my throat.
‘Dog poo,’ I concluded.
Reuben clicked his tongue impatiently, shifting from foot to foot. ‘Not that. I’m not talking about that.’
‘Cigarette smoke?’
‘Come here.’ He beckoned to me with one hand while parting branches with the other. ‘Have a whiff of that. Can’t you smell it?’
For some reason (don’t ask me why) I wanted to show him that my nose was just as good as his, if not better. So I willingly thrust my head into a murky thicket that stank of squashed dates and stagnant water and . . . possum?
‘Is it a dead possum?’
He stared at me, bug-eyed. ‘Possum?’ he squawked. ‘What the hell kind of man-eating possums do you have around here, anyway?’
‘Fox?’ I guessed. ‘Or . . . I dunno . . . tomcat?’
‘It’s you, Toby.’ Reuben stepped off the path into the undergrowth. ‘Either that or someone else in this neighbourhood has the same condition.’
It was my turn to gape at him.
‘What are you talking about?’ I exclaimed. ‘Are you off your nut? I don’t smell like that!’
‘You did on Monday night,’ he retorted. ‘This smells just like my bank vault does, after I’ve been knocking around in it for a few hours.’ All at once he bent over, his hands on his knees. ‘Mmph,’ he said, peering at the ground. ‘That’s interesting.’
I was certain he’d spotted our paw prints, so I ploughed into the bush after him. The musky smell was much stronger beneath the canopy of palm fronds.
‘Look,’ he said, pointing. My heart sank. Even in the dim light, it was obvious that he hadn’t found any paw prints. Instead he’d stumbled on a scattering of feathers. ‘See that?’ he queried. ‘See the way they’re all stuck together in clumps? Dried blood makes ’em do that.’
‘So?’
‘So something’s been eating the ducks.’ He began to forge ahead, down a shallow slope towards the lake. Branches caught at his loose, tangled hair. They scraped across his bare arms and legs.
Then he stopped, so abruptly that I almost ran into him from behind. I’d been distracted because I’d walked straight through a spider’s web and was still trying to peel it off my eyelashes.
‘Ugh . . . yuck . . .’ I muttered, before realising that I was right at the water’s edge. Over Reuben’s shoulder, I could see the fountain, the flags, and the function centre.
I could also see Fergus’s paw prints. Reuben was gazing down at them.
‘Nice try,’ he said.
‘What?’
He folded his arms and pulled a face. But he didn’t say anything else. He just turned and headed out of the undergrowth, a red flush slowly staining his olive cheeks.
Damn, I thought. Damn, damn, damn.
‘What is it?’ I called after him. ‘Hey! Did you see these? What do you think they could be?’
‘You should know,’ he growled, crashing over dead leaves and dry sticks. ‘You put ’em there.’
God, was that ever a sucker punch! I was floored. My stomach seemed to drop through the soles of my feet. I would have jumped in the lake and swum for it, if my phone hadn’t been in my pocket.
But as Reuben kept retreating, my panic began to subside. I realised that he wasn’t searching for a blunt instrument. He really was marching away, before he totally lost his temper. Those prints had been the last straw.
He was pissed off with me, big-time.
For a split second I felt relieved. Then it occurred to me that pissed off doesn’t mean scared off. What was to stop him getting madder and madder and coming after me at a later date? Nothing. I had no defence. Unless I calmed him down – unless I lied my head off – he would turn into a ticking time bomb.
‘Hey!’ I yelped. ‘Wait!’
When he didn’t even pause, I tried to close the gap between us.
‘Hey! Hang on! Ouch!’ A branch had slapped me in the face. ‘What’s the problem? What did I do?’
Still no answer. By this time he had reached the path; I saw him silhouetted against the glare for an instant
as he hesitated, glancing from side to side. Then he disappeared, swerving off to the right at a rapid trot. I figured he was making for the car park near the function centre.
But if that was his ultimate goal, he had to deal with a few obstacles along the way. When I staggered out of the undergrowth, scattering leaves and twigs, I saw him rooted to the spot not half a dozen metres from where I stood. He was staring at a mangy-looking shrub, behind which two hunched figures were clearly visible.
‘Oh, man . . .’ The words popped out before I could swallow them. They weren’t very loud, though; I don’t think Reuben heard me. He was too busy intimidating my friends.
Amin was certainly intimidated. I could tell by the set of his shoulders. Fergus, however, rose to the challenge. He must have made a snap decision to brazen it out, because he emerged from the undergrowth with a lot of noise and movement, as if to demonstrate that he wasn’t hiding from anyone. He wore a huge grin, and was fiddling with his fly.
‘Hey!’ he said. ‘It’s you! Are you stalking us, by any chance?’
Reuben’s jaw-muscles twitched.
‘I was busting,’ Fergus added breezily, by way of explanation. ‘There aren’t enough toilets in this park, eh?’
I don’t know if he was expecting an answer, but he certainly didn’t get one. Reuben fixed his gaze on Amin, who had followed Fergus onto the path.
‘Oh!’ Amin coloured. ‘It wasn’t like – I mean, I wasn’t watching him pee, or anything.’
‘God, no!’ Fergus yipped, momentarily aghast. His grin vanished. ‘Amin was just looking for his . . . um, you know . . .’
‘My football!’ Amin exclaimed. ‘I kicked my football into the bushes.’
Fergus rolled his eyes. I couldn’t blame him. For one thing, neither he nor Amin had been carrying a ball back at the kiosk. And for another, Amin doesn’t look like someone who plays football. Though certainly shaped like a ball, he’s the sort of kid who always ends up at the bottom of every pile-up. I used to play on the same soccer team as Amin – as central midfielder, because of my fancy dancer’s footwork – and I never even saw him touch the ball. Ever. He just couldn’t get anywhere near it.